Monday, 30 November 2009

The skirt I am making in sewing class is this close to completion! It is the (very) basic A-line summer skirt from Amy Butler's Midwest Modern Barcelona Skirts range, made up in a Freespirit quilting fabric, Darla by Tanya Whelan. I feel like a sack of spuds in it but perhaps I might feel differently by next summer!?!

Wednesday, 25 November 2009

What's HotWe've just collected our second Bookstart pack from the libary. This is such a great scheme which promotes books by encouraging babies and pre-schoolers to look, feel and (eventually) read books. You're never too early to start turning a page! Our latest pack has a numbers theme and includes two great picture books about counting, a numbers frieze for the wall and a book of plain paper with crayons (which were used immediately!)

Another book we have been reading is Millie's Marvellous Hat by Satoshi Kitamura, which we borrowed from the library. It is a little advanced for a two year old but my little girl is captivated by the pictures. The story covers the themes of kindness, imagination and endless possibilities.

Friday, 30 October 2009

Penelope Mortimer intrigues me: her six children by four different men, her extra-marital affairs, her breakdowns, her unhealthy marriage, her written fiction-based-on-fact, her chaos.In Daddy's Gone A-Hunting, emotions simmer under the surface and things go unsaid. Ruth, the main character, needs to be given a good shake and told to "pull yourself together woman!"

"She was wondering, Ruth knew, why the girl didn't comb her hair or put on some decent clothes or stand straight or have a few manners. What would she think if she knew, if Ruth said, 'She's pregnant and we are just going to meet the father of her child at The Tea Kettle Inn to talk about finding money for an abortion.' What, standing there in her pearls and her leather jacket and her crocheted hat, would she do? For a moment, backing towards the door, she had an insane temptation to find out. She swallowed and blinked, shaking her face into an uncertain smile."

Sunday, 11 October 2009

"When Mary went downstairs, Denys was in the hall, finishing a drink. 'Can I have one?' asked Mary, to prolong the time in which they would be alone together. He ordered two cocktails and then they each had another, and by the time Mary pushed through the revolving doors into the street, she felt very light-hearted; and as if her cheek bones were higher than usual, and she must smile."

After seeing this book described as being a funny, readable, perceptive account of a girl, Mary, encountering life and love, I was really expecting to be engrossed by an enjoyable read but was disappointed. The ending had me gripped, as did the account of the 8 year old Mary getting herself home by tube from central London late at night, but the bulk of the book was just tedious. Mary did not come across as likeable so I didn't really care what happened to her.

Mary's mother's life as a widowed single parent, who "bluffed her way into the job of teaching dressmaking at a Domestic Science College" and by the end of the book is owner of a dress shop in South Molten Street, would have made a far more interesting tale!

Monday, 5 October 2009

".... and listened to the messages on the answering machine. There were so many now that the later ones had erased the earlier ones. Gloria thought this was how her own memory worked, except the opposite way round....... Pam fluttering, oh Gloria, can I have your recipe for Turkish cheesecake, I know I've written it down somewhere but I can't put my hands on it. It was a very good recipe - a packet of Philidelphia, a tin of Fussell's sterilized cream and half a dozen eggs beaten together and poured into a caramel-coated mould and cooked gently in a bain-marie. It was the kind of recipe a person treasured once they had been given it. Careless Pam would not be getting it off Gloria a second time."

Saturday, 26 September 2009

"There is a religion somewhere in the world that believes we all die twice; once in the normal way and the second time when the last person who really knew us dies, so one's living memory is gone from the earth."

So many words! I thought it would never end! An interesting read but the ending, possibly because I couldn't wait to get to it as I ploughed through the pages, left me disappointed.

Wednesday, 23 September 2009

Followed by a cuppa in the beautiful Gamble Room. This room, and two other richly decorated rooms, formed the first museum restaurant in the world and were intended as a showpiece of modern design, craftsmanship and manufacturing.

Monday, 7 September 2009

"Joan Evans lunched .... Truly she is a horrid old thing. She spat the meat into her fingers and on to the table without using a fork. She gurked, and farted. In speaking to me at luncheon she let fly an enormous piece of artichoke. I saw it coming and ducked. She saw me duck and rise again and resume the conversation as though nothing had happened. How absurd social conventions are when you do not know people well enough to laugh over these incidents. Neither of us betrayed by one muscle of the face what both had noticed."